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Valentine heard scattered gunfire; Zhao's company was shooting at the tower. He upbraided himself for not giving strict orders to only shoot the tower. The soldiers might start firing at his Bears in the confusion.
Rain extracted himself from the wire and pulled his knife and hooked ax. He plunged into the smoke boiling out of his improvised door. The other Bears followed drawing blades, hatchets and, in Brass' case, a folding shovel.
Nail followed his men in, machine pistol held tight against his shoulder.
Groschen shot again. "That'll teach you to peek," he muttered as he chambered another round.
Valentine heard screams from within the Quonset hut. A Quisling, blood running from his eyes and ears, stumbled blindly out the back door. He hit the sandbags and went over head-down-feet-up like a teeter-totter changing balance. Hack put a single shot into his armpit.
"We surrender. Surrender," a voice from the tower yelled faintly across the yard.
A pained scream bounced off the corrugated walls of the hut. He noticed Captain Beck at his side. "Helluva Bear team you have, Valentine."
Valentine had no time for him. "Throw your guns outta there," he shouted at the tower, his voice dry and hoarse in the smoke and cold night air.
The machine gun and some rifles flew out of the tower. One discharged as it hit the ground.
"Stop shooting, we surrender," the invisible Quisling shouted.
"Idiots," Groschen said. He picked up his Grog gun, holding it with the aid of a sling. "Let's go get them."
Valentine looked to Beck. "Wait here, Captain," he said. He shuffled crabwise to the sandbags covering the front of the hut. He followed his gun muzzle over the side. Two bodies and a third guard, whimpering out his confusion, lay there. The man must have been in shock, otherwise he'd be screaming, judging from the absence of his foot.
The man's pain still triggered instincts not wholly lost.
"Groschen, help this man."
"Sure thing, sir." Groshen drew a palm-sized automatic from his vest and shot the man through the ear. It was carried out with the same smooth, careless motion that he might use to toss away a gum wrapper.
"That's not what I meant," Valentine sputtered.
"Sorry, sir, but it's just a Kurpee."
Who are you to judge ? Valentine had killed helpless men in anger, in desperation, in fear. He'd machine-gunned helpless sailors and murdered men in their sleep-and been giddy and sickened by the act. Maybe Groschen was better than Valentine after all; he didn't look like he'd enjoyed it.
"Coming out, Gross," Brass said from the doorway.
"Come ahead."
Brass came out, splattered with blood. "Even dozen. Rain's taking the heads now."
"You two, get the prisoners out of the tower. I'm going to see about getting the women out."
Groschen and Brass walked toward the tower, Groschen keeping his gun pointed up, holding it from the hip like a Haitian erotic fetish Valentine had seen in the Caribbean. He took one more look at the executed Quisling-he'd seen the man's face before, standing watch over prisoner labor. Whatever thoughts, ideas, dreams, or regrets had lived within that bloody head were forever lost.
Bullets flew. Shots from outside the camp made Brass and Groschen throw themselves to the ground. Valentine vaulted over the sandbag wall and landed on one of the splayed bodies.
"What the hell?" Nail said from the doorway.
"It's Zhao's company," Valentine said. "They're shooting at us."
"Fuck!" Lost & Found swore. For a man with "Born Again to Kill" written on his helmet, he had a distinctly unchristian way of expressing himself. Brass and Groschen both hollered "Cease fire" as best as they could with their faces planted in the common yard's dirt.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Valentine asked, looking at Lost & Found's swollen hand.
"It will tomorrow. Don't worry, sir. She'll heal up."
Valentine caught motion out of the corner of his eye; a figure ran out to the gate of the camp.
